Murder.

A little stream-of-consciousness blog for you.

This morning, as part of my job as a Communications Coordinator position for a non-profit religious organization, I went to Kinko’s and created a poster for an upcoming “Million Voices for Darfur Action Night.” A week from tomorrow, a couple hundred concerned citizens will converge on this place and make phone calls and send postcards to the President and their legislators about genocide in the Darfur region of Africa.

Which is all well and good, mind you. I am steadfastly anti-genocide.

What tripped me out just a bit, however, is the fact that as I trimmed the edges of my poster, I looked across the street and saw Calhoun Square, which is Ground Zero for the fashionable, “progressive” Uptown area of Minneapolis. What chilled me is the fact that last weekend, a young tourist was murdered on the very corner I was looking at.

Here’s a link to the full story.

He was in town with his mom visiting friends. A couple of pieces of trash approached his group and demanded his mother’s purse. She complied. Then they shot her son in the head and he subsequently died.

This story has really bothered me the last couple of days, probably because I’m so familiar with the area. I work near there, just a couple weeks ago my wife went there—alone—to get a pair of glasses after work. This weekend my brother and his wife will be visiting from Lincoln, Nebraska and might very well end up on that very corner.

I had a friend e-mail me this week and tell me that she thinks about death a lot. She is “with child” and for some reason has what she seems to understand is an irrational fear that she might die during childbirth. No one has been able to quell this fear. “I’m scared to die,” she wrote. “I never want to.”

It’s hard for me to understand this point of view, because as a person who has claimed to feel suicidal at times, I do not fear death. There are times, frankly, I feel I would welcome it. I can tell you one thing for certain, however: I would rather face another 50 years of abject depression and misery than have my life snuffed out by a creature that cannot be labeled “human” like the pair of miscreants who murdered that tourist on the corner of Lake and Hennepin in Minneapolis.

I think about this young man’s brains leaking onto the sidewalk. He was an extremely well-educated individual; he had at least one degree and was continuing to pursue education. All of his efforts amounted to no more than a stain on the pavement, while at least two people—whose combined brainpower would fit in the now-deceased young man’s pinky—chose to remove him from this earth for nothing more than a purse containing an unknown amount of money: Perhaps none. That is what this man’s life was worth to these “people.”

How would I react if I got “the call” saying that my brother, visiting from out of town, had been gunned down in a robbery? What if my wife, on a routine after-work shopping trip, was approached by “people” like this and raped and/or murdered? Think of all the lives impacted by this senseless atrocity. Easily hundreds of people might be devastated by the domino effect of grief, all because two morons wanted to steal a purse.

Yesterday I was listening to a talk radio show and a caller suggested two things to prevent such events in the future. First, he suggested that Lake Street be renamed “Martin Luther King Boulevard” in order to give the residents of the area the dignity they deserve. Second, he demanded “more social programs.” This is a quote. Further, he said that young men such as the murderers need to be given cars so that they do not have to rely on buses to get to and fro, and they also need to be given “tokens” they can redeem for free admission to movies so that they don’t have time on their hands.

Sadly, I wish I could say the caller was being ironic; that he was actually a die-hard conservative trying to prove a point. However, this person is a regular caller and he steadfastly believes what he said. Yes, the shooting itself was a tragedy, but what’s done is done. What we need to focus on now is providing free movie admission to Somali gang members so that they don’t choose the obvious alternative: Gunning down tourists.

My mind is, of course, reeling with responses to this man’s suggestions. My first reaction is to simply respond to his suggestions for more social programs. As a struggling, middle-class guy I can tell you that nights out are a rarity for me. Going to a movie is a rare privilege, and to think that someone is suggesting that a portion of my wages be used to provide free admission to the “underprivileged” is an outrage to me. And my vehicle is a 1997 Ford Ranger that is on its last legs; I pray daily that it sees me through my remaining couple years at school. But of course, free vehicles need to be provided to people less privileged than me, because it is an affront to their dignity to resort to public transportation.

But the thing that really has me scratching my bald pate is the thought—the fear—that there are people who believe such programs would work. Like the mythical “lost chord” in music will open one’s mind to the wonders of the Universe, somewhere out there is the magical social program that will cure all our ills. All that is required is patience and the bottomless pot of money sitting at the state capitol.

I would offer that part of the answer to society’s ills bled to death on a Minneapolis street last weekend. A productive person—an increasing rarity in our society—was gunned down for a purse in front of his mother. All the good that characterized him, all the education he had worked hard to achieve, all the plans he had to make his own life count and thereby provide a trickle-down effect to society at large: All these things were hosed into the gutter by a clean-up crew after evidence was gathered.

One week from tomorrow “A Million Voices for Darfur” will ring out from a building just six blocks from where that young man was gunned down in cold blood. By that time his story will be relegated to a blurb on page 10. By that time I will be creating the next poster for the next cause du jour, and once again I will peer out the window and see that corner, and I will pray to God or whatever forces greater than me control this Universe and ask Him/Her/It to protect my wife, my family, and my friend who fears death. Comfort that family who will grieve the rest of their lives. Give wisdom to those who pity the perpetrators.